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Manufacturing 60 Second Survey

The 60 second survey is a quarterly communication aimed at finding out the views of senior executives from the Manufacturing sector on the economy, their growth plans and the current status of their business confidence.

As part of our quarterly industry 60 second surveys, our aim was to find out the views of senior executives from the Manufacturing sector on the current status of their order books and wishes for the next Budget. From this quarters' results we can see that manufacturers are generally feeling more positive about the outlook for their business over the next six months. Overall the balance of confidence stands at 45 percent, up from 36 percent in October 2009, but the trend line has moved northwards, not because of a higher level of positive sentiments because of negative ones declining. We believe that manufacturers are waiting for the economic outlook to stablise before feeling confident enough in the outlook for the economy to make significant investments.

When we turn to look at the results for order books, we were incredibly encouraged by the findings. 61% of respondents in the survey reported order books up between 10 and 20% on last year with only 12% reporting a fall in orders. Interestingly engineered and metal products reported increases up 20%, with the most likely reason for this being the impact of the scrappage scheme on component suppliers in the automotive supply chain.  However, despite a generally positive mood amongst manufacturers on their order books, the recession's impact on consumer spending on electronics and white goods has hit technology & electronics manufacturers the hardest with half the respondents reporting orders the same or lower than last year.

Another encouraging sign is that order books are up in the heartlands of UK manufacturing, areas of traditional manufacturing which were particularly hard hit by the recession, with a third of manufacturers in the Midlands and North West reporting order books up by over 10%.

Please click here to view the current survey.

Previous issues:

Autumn 2009
Summer 2009

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